Eye of Round Roast – High Heat Cooking

July 15, 2011

When purchasing a whole cow (which in case you’re wondering, I shared with others), you get to decide how it gets butchered. The butcher advised against grinding the tougher cuts of meats, saying that there’d be plenty of ground beef from the leftover bits, and that when properly cooked, the tougher cuts still taste great. A year later, all the ground beef is gone, and I’m left scratching my head how to make the roasts less tough, while getting bored of pot roasts. It’s not quite as simple as promised – I don’t know if it’s this particular steer or farm, the fact that it’s 100% grass-fed, or the cooking methods. But after trying every which way, this particular method offered a lot of bang for your buck. Meaning pretty decent results considering the lack of required effort. It’s basically high-heat cooking, which is supposed to destroy grass-fed meat. The catch is that it’s only at a very high temperature for a very short period of time. This is a nice cooking method to add to your repertoire, for variety, and a quick and easy way to prepare meat. It’s probably better suited to smaller roasts, and the eye of round roast turned out surprisingly tender for grass-fed beef.

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 500 °F.

2. Season the meat with salt and pepper and place in a roasting dish. Insert meat thermometer into the roast.

3. Reduce the temperature to 475 °F and place the roast in the oven. Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes, depending how thick your roast is.

4. Turn off the oven, and let the roast sit in the hot oven until the meat thermometer indicates 127°F for medium rare – approx. 2 – 2.5 hours).

5. Remove roast from oven, loosely cover (tent) with aluminum foil, and let the meat rest for approximately 15 minutes.

6. Slice meat into medium-thickness medallions.

Enjoy with butter, sautéed mushrooms and onions, and horseradish. Goes well with grilled asparagus.

I made this this morning in order to beat the sweltering heat that we are experiencing in Wisconsin. To my amazement it turned out just wonderful–looks just like your picture. Eye of round is one of those cuts that I always thought a person needed to cook in tinfoil with a pack of dried onion soup mix (from days of yore). It is nice to know it can be cooked in such a way that it is rare and tender. The roast I made today will be good cold served with salads to keep us cool. I like your idea of horseradish, which will add some nice flavor to the dish. Thank you again for another keeper recipe.